


my shelter, my sunshine, my guiding light

by Atlanta_Black



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evil Albus Dumbledore, F/M, Getting Together, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Reincarnation, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Sirius Black/Voldemort|Tom Riddle/Remus Lupin (background), The Golden Trio, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black
Summary: Every time he thinks fate is done destroying him and every time he is proven wrong.He wakes up.He wakes up, seventeen-years-old, in a house he doesn’t recognize and his heart sinks, his breath stutters and it takes every bit of will power he possesses to not scream. To not start screaming and never stop.He wakes up in a world that is just familiar enough to make himacheand just different enough to make him rage.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Comments: 23
Kudos: 427





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well y'all, I finally, finally finished it!!!! It is finally complete! I had to re-think the focus of the fic and the way I was telling it but I've finally finished it! If you've been waiting for over a year for me to do so then bless you for sticking around and I hope you enjoy the finished product! <3<3

_”I wish that_

_I could say_

_I am a light_

_That never_

_Goes out_

_But I_

_Flicker_

_From time to time.”_

unknown

  


➳

  
_Every time he thinks fate is done destroying him and every time he is proven wrong._

He wakes up. 

He wakes up, seventeen-years-old, in a house he doesn’t recognize and his heart sinks, his breath stutters and it takes every bit of will power he possesses to not scream. To not start screaming and never stop. 

He wakes up in a world that is just familiar enough to make him _ache_ and just different enough to make him rage. He is in a room of soft blues, covered in posters he’s never seen. There’s a desk in the corner, covered in papers and figurines. There’s a bookshelf and closet full of clothes. There’s a broom on the wall, a well-worn comforter on his bed and he has _never_ seen this room. This room that must be his, must belong to the boy who’s body he’s taken over. 

He wakes up. 

Wakes up with seventeen years of memories already in his head. Seventeen years of memories filled with happiness and hugs. Filled with affection and friendship _(but not them, never them)_ and inside jokes. Filled with all the things he had dreamed about in his first life and then decided he didn’t deserve. 

Seventeen years of memories where his mother is _alive_. Alive and vibrant, eyes full of love and Harry wants to cry every time he remembers the way she touches his hair. Wants to scream because now she will never, _never_ know who he really is. She will never know him and the injustice is sinking into his bones and he is _unravelling. He did not ask for this he did not—_

Seventeen years of his father alive. His father, alive and breathing and moving around with such purpose. Always with such enthusiasm for life and Harry wonders, aches, wants to know if this is what he could have been like if he had grown up with them the first time around. If he had grown up with nothing but their love, their support, his father’s endless string of _Merlin, look how big you’ve gotten, I’m so proud of you, I love you, I love you, I love—_

Seventeen years of memories suddenly overshadowed by two hundred and eighty years of memories from his first life and Harry wakes up sobbing, panicking because this _cannot_ be happening. 

When Lily and James burst into his room, drawn by a scream he couldn’t hold in, they find him trying to claw his own skin off. He cannot live through this again, _please no, please, please, please, plea—_  


➳

  
Harry’s first life flashes by and Death watches, Death waits. 

Harry wakes up in the afterlife to a being that tells him, _no, you will not be allowed to move on. No, you cannot see your family. But I will give you what I can because you are my master and you have done nothing to shackle me and so I shall be kind._

Harry remembers none of this when he awakes. 

Even if he had, he would not have named it a kindness.  


➳

  
It takes Harry hours to calm down. Hours before he can speak without sobbing. Hours before he can formulate some kind of excuse as to why their normally happy son is suddenly waking up screaming. 

Whatever lie he tells them they do not believe. Whatever lie he speaks falls flat and they all know that it isn’t believed.   
Lily and James know their son in this life. They know him and the boy in front of them is watching them with haunted eyes and every time he touches them his fingers shake. He touches them as if he’ll open his eyes and find them gone again. They don’t know what’s happened but they know that this is not the son they raised. 

They could never have fathomed the truth behind the shadows suddenly hiding in his eyes.   


➳

  
Harry spends the next month adapting to being in a life so different and yet so similar to his own. Lily and James watch him with careful eyes during the weeks leading up to September 1st and Harry tries so very hard to not let on that he is not the same son they remember raising. He fears he’s done a piss poor job of it if the way they stare at him is any indication. 

The first time Sirius and Remus come to visit, a week before he’s to leave for his seventh year _(and isn’t that a joke in itself)_ , he nearly breaks down then and there. Sirius stands tall, laugh lines creasing his eyes. There are no shadows in his eyes, no grief hiding in his words. There’s nothing but a man who pauses in the doorway of the living room and turns sharp eyes on the godson that he helped raise. Nothing but a man who leaves a lingering hand on his shoulder all throughout the night as if he can physically pull the grief from Harry if only he stays close enough. Only a man who cannot possibly begin to comprehend the rage beating behind Harry’s ribcage. 

He holds himself together, clinging to composure with bloody fingers, ribs aching from the screams he keeps swallowing down. He holds himself together but Remus can smell the pain, can smell the absolute heartbreak consuming this child that his wolf named pack long before he ever learned to accept that part of himself. Remus can smell all the ways the boy in front of him is not the boy he remembers seeing not even a month ago. 

Later, after they’ve left and have settled onto their own couch, in their own house, Sirius looks at Remus with worried eyes and says, _he hugged me as if I was going to disappear. As if he would turn around and I would be gone. Moony, what’s happened? What’s happened?_

_I don’t know, Pads,_ Remus whispers, fingers digging into the couch as he thinks of the way Harry flinched away from them as if they were naught but ghosts left to haunt him. _But he smelt of fear, of sadness and heartbreak. And underneath it all, he smelt of rage. Burning, blistering rage._   


➳

  
September 1st dawns bright and cold, and Harry wakes up with Bellatrix’s laughter ringing in his ears. It’s funny how being thrown back into your seventeen-year-old body brings back all that childhood trauma that you had thought you’d dealt with but had clearly just pushed down far enough that it didn’t bother you anymore. 

He wakes, her laughter ringing in his ears, Hermione’s screams digging into his brain _(a well-worn fear)_ , and when he sees a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, he doesn’t stop to think, only rolls from the bed, a burst of magic instinctively hurtling to meet the threat. It’s not until he glances over the bed and meets his dad’s wide eyes, sees the wall burnt behind him, that he feels something like terror, like helplessness sink into his bones.   
“Harry…” James' voice trails off, his eyes moving between the still smoking wall and his son’s wide green eyes. 

Harry runs. 

He’s down the stairs and out the front door before James can do anything other than yell his name. The pavement is damp against his bare feet, his wand clasped tightly in his hands. 

“Harry!”

He’s halfway up the street but his mum screams his name and it seems to echoe through his head — _‘Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I’ll do anything_ — and he turns, catching her eye and for just a second time hangs suspended as he hesitates. 

His mum is crying, panicked although she doesn’t know why, hair a red cloud in the wind and she is running, eyes wild and desperate. His dad is only a few steps behind her and he has to make a choice. Has to do something—   
_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him._

There was never, has never, been a choice. 

He drinks in the sight of his parents one last time and disapparates away. 

Lily’s hand passes through air, _“HARRY!”_  


➳

  
He hadn’t been sure where he was going to end up. The only thought in his mind being _home, home, home, please take me home_. He just wants out of this life but it doesn’t work like that, and so instead he ends up in the middle of a quiet muggle street. The only blessing is that there are no muggles insight to see him appear. 

By some miracle, he hasn’t splinched himself and when he takes a second glance around, heart still pounding in his chest, he finds that he dimly recognizes the neighbourhood. In fact, the longer he stares at the house in front of him, the surer he is of where his magic has brought him. He’s gone where he always goes in time of great distress. 

“Potter? Why are you in front of my house?” A girl's voice questions sharply from behind him. 

He spins around, only to be confronted with an eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger who is glaring at him, hands on her hips and confusion clear in her eyes. In this world he has never spoken a word to Hermione Granger, has never glanced twice at her. Their lives were so distinctly separate that they might as well have lived on opposite sides of the world instead of only separate sides of the same school. 

“I…” he doesn’t have an explanation for this. Not one that she will buy. “I missed my friend,” he blurts out instead, a half-truth that does nothing to dim the confusion in her eyes. 

“We’re not friends Potter,” she says bemused, eyes flicking to the house behind him. 

_We used to be, please, please. I need you, please. You can’t forget me, please._

“We could be,” he mutters, shoves his hands in his pockets, and then glances down at himself, wrinkling his nose at his bare feet and wondering what she thinks of this.   
“Potter,” she sighs, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Listen, I don’t know what’s happened or _how_ you know where I live or,” she continues voice rising, “why you are standing in the middle of the street, in your pajamas, barefoot. Or how you know how to apparate when we aren’t due to learn that until this year but you need to _leave_ ,” she finishes, voice high and tight, eyes flashing around the neighbourhood as if she’s waiting for someone to jump out at her. 

“I’m sorry, I just, I didn’t know, you used to…” he swallows, tilts his head to the sky, and blinks rapidly, the incomprehensible idea of never having her know him twisting its way around his heart and squeezing. _Please, please, please, please, please—_

“Potter,” she says, gentle and pitying in a way she had never been. “Please go home.”

_Please, please, I can’t do this, I can’t, please remember, I can’t, I need you, I need you, plea—_

“We used to be friends,” he says quietly to the sky, uselessly, throat clogged and skin feeling too tight. 

“I think I’d remember that,” she sighs, takes a step backwards and then hisses, face screwed up in pain when he looks down. 

“It was a long time ago, or perhaps not that long ago at all, I’m not sure how this works.”

_Please, please, Hermione, please, I need you, I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t be alone, not here, not now, please—_

Her hands drop to her sides, hands clenched into fists, lips bloodless with how tightly they’re pressed together.

“Hermione,” he whispers, voice breaking, pleading and wretched with all the things he wants to say. “Hermione, please.”

She’s standing so rigidly he half expects her to fall over, eyes gone wide, nostrils flared, pain etched into every section of her body as she breathes through whatever is happening. _“Harry,”_ she breathes, followed by a whimper, the heels of her hands moving to dig into her eyes.   
He takes half a step forward, heart pounding in his ears, the world narrowing down to nothing but her barely audible whimpers and his own breathing. 

_Please_ , he reaches out hesitantly, curls a hand around her wrist, and flinches as her eyes snap open, hands dropping as she blinks at him. He nearly collapses, knees gone weak, at the recognition and horror crawling over her face. 

He’ll never be able to tell you who moves first but they both move, flinging their arms around each other. 

“I thought it was over,” she mutters, the words muffled into his shoulder. “You died, I died. It should have been over.” 

“I thought so too, but we’re here and my parents are _alive_ and I have massively fucked up everything,” he says, his earlier panic still lingering in his chest. 

She pulls back, mouth already open to respond but is cut off by an ear-splitting crack as James appears behind them and when they turn to face him, hands clasped tight together, he finds wild, desperate eyes locked on him. 

“ _Oh,_ he looks just like Jaime,” she says, shock coating her words. 

Lily twists into existence next to her husband, face tear-streaked and hair sparking. 

“And she looks just like Lily,” he mutters. 

This part has been the hardest. His children grew up always feeling as if they stood in the shadows of those that came before them. Grew up feeling as if they could never live up to the names he had unthinkingly saddled them with. Now his parents stand in front him and some days, all he’s been able to think of is how much they look like the children he’ll never get to see again. 

His parents don’t immediately rush him, seemingly held back by Hermione’s unexpected presence, but he can see that even that won’t stop them for long. 

“What the hell have you done to my son,” his dad spits, his shaking hand pointing his wand at Hermione. Lily turns wide eyes on James, clearly shocked by the assumption. 

Hermione shifts restlessly next to him, her grip on his hand tight enough to hurt. “She hasn’t done anything to me,” he says gently, squeezing back. 

“See you say that—” his dad snaps as his mum steps forward, eyes bright with tears. Only his dad’s hand on her arm stops her from rushing forward. “—but my son doesn’t know how to apparate and he doesn’t wake up screaming from nightmares, _he doesn’t run from us_ ,” his dad's voice breaks, fury and fear mingled together and threaded through his words. 

“No,” he agrees heavily because truly, he isn’t _their_ son. “I didn’t, but now I do and I wish I could explain but I can’t.” They would never believe him. And even if they would, he doesn’t think he could handle looking his parents in the eyes and telling them, that in another life, they die for him. In another life they gave up their lives so that he could live. 

“Harry, _please_ ,” his mum pleads, hand outstretched and he flinches backwards, the guilt climbing up his throat and threatening to strangle him. He hates, hates, hates that he’s made her look like that. Hates that he’s made her so unbearably sad in a life where she should do nothing but smile. 

“You can tell us anything, prongslet. Just please, whatever has happened, please let us help,” his dad pleads, some of the tenseness fallen from his shoulders and Merlin, he hates this, hates that he’s going to do nothing but cause them more pain. 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out.

Hermione draws her wand, “Harry,” she murmurs, squeezing his hand and shifting backwards, glancing around the neighbourhood nervously. He can dimly hear the sound of yelling coming from one of the houses, the neighbourhood waking up. “We need to go.”

His dad is eyeing Hermione warily and his mum takes another step forward, panic leaking into her eyes, hands outstretched, palms to the sky. 

_“Please, please I love you, Harry, darling please don’t—”_

_“I’m so, so sorry,”_ he chokes out again, meeting his mum’s eyes as Hermione shifts forward, twisting them both sharply and they’re gone before his mum can do more than open her mouth to cry out.   


➳

  
They apparate randomly around the country, stopping in the forest of Dean, in London, near Hogsmeade, near Diagon alley and then finally, finally they appear with a crack near the Burrow and the disbelief over their situation seems to fully sink in on Hermione. She sits, or rather, nearly falls down on the side of the road, wand clenched tight, and stares at her hands as if she’s never seen them before. 

Harry watches her for a long moment before looking at the Burrow in the distance and feels his heart clench. It’s been years and years since he last saw Molly and Arthur. Years and years since they passed and his children grew up and had children of their own. The prospect of seeing them again at some point had never crossed his mind until he was here, mere minutes from their home, the knowledge that the usual hustle and bustle of the Weasley’s getting ready to leave for school is happening only minutes away. 

_Oh._

He sits down, legs shaking at the realization that sweeps over him suddenly. 

“Hermione,” he whispers, voice barely daring to work. “Hermione, Fred’s alive.”

Her head snaps towards his, eyes gone wide and he can see her hands shaking in her lap. 

“He’s alive, Hermione. He’s right over that hill, still alive. They’re all _still_ alive,” his voice breaks and he can see that same disbelief, that same wild grief echoed back at him from Hermione’s face. 

“We have to be careful, Harry,” she cautions, voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t the same world we grew up in and I don’t,” she pauses, a frustrated frown pulling at her lips. “I don’t know what’s different. I need to think, need to sort out my memories and…” she trails off, staring at her hands, lips trembling. 

“What? What’s wrong?” He prompts after the silence has dragged on for too long.

“What if he doesn’t remember us,” she whispers looking up at him and he thinks for a second that she’s going to start crying, voice raw with grief. 

He stares back, unable to think of anything at all to say in the face of something so unthinkable. Ron has to remember. It’s always been Harry, Hermione and Ron. It’s _always_ been the three of them. 

She swallows after a second, standing up and brushing off her clothes before looking at him expectantly. “Alright, come on. Let’s go see if we can catch him alone for a moment,” she says briskly, in that no-nonsense tone of hers that she uses when facing daunting tasks. 

“What are we going to do if we catch him alone?” He asks, the enormity of the task suddenly sinking in. 

She hesitates, biting her lip and looking him over. “We’ll just have to hope that whatever your magic did with me works with him as well.”

He stares at her and swallows. That desperate edge he had approached her with has already ebbed away, her presence calming his magic and he’s not sure if he can really muster it up again. But regardless, he nods and follows her up the road. 

It’s Ron. He has to try. He’ll always try his hardest for them.   


➳

  
Thankfully they think to circle around to the back before they get within sight of the Burrow. It wouldn’t do to have Molly catch sight of them before they can even try and speak with Ron. Especially since in this life, there is no reason for either of them to be asking after Ron. No reason for Ron to have any wish to see them at all. 

The first full view of the Burrow knocks the breath out of him. This is _home_. This was his second home after Hogwarts, was where they all congregated for family get-togethers even after Molly and Arthur’s death. This was home, happiness, family, the screaming of children, warmth, safety and he _aches_ again for all that this life will never be able to give him. 

They creep as close as they dare, trying to stay behind trees and out of sight of the windows. There isn’t much they can do at this point besides wait and hope that Ron comes outside. Hope that they don’t leave for the train before they can get a word with him. According to Hermione’s _tempus_ they have roughly two hours before the Weasley’s leave for the train, and they need to get to Ron before he reaches Hogwarts.

They both lean forward excitedly as the back door opens, only to deflate when it’s just Ginny running out to grab something from the garden, hair shining brightly in the sun and the sight of her hits Harry like a fucking rock to the head. He sits down hard, back against a tree, and stares after her as she disappears back into the Burrow.   
He had spent the majority of his first life with her. He knows her as well as he knows himself and yet… And yet he’s barely given her a thought since he woke up in this strange life. He’s thought of his children with increasing regularity, his parents a stark reminder. He’s thought of Hermione and Ron in that near-desperate way he always does when things suddenly take a turn for the worst. But he hasn’t thought of Ginny even once and suddenly he feels like the lowest scum for it. 

He tears his eyes away from the door that he watched her disappear into and finds Hermione watching him with worried eyes, hands clenched in front of her. Before she can say anything though, the door opens again, Ron walking out the back, and Harry feels as if all the breath has left his lungs again. 

_Oh._

How foolish of him to think that seeing Ron again wouldn’t bring that same desperate edge back to his thoughts. How foolish of him to think he doesn’t miss Ron with every single fiber of his being. How could he ever live without the two of them? It has been the three of them since they were eleven years old, the weight of the world still finding purchase on their shoulders. It has always been the three of them and will _always_ be the three of them. He cannot fathom a universe where it is not. 

_Later, he’ll look back on this moment and wonder why he hadn’t responded just as desperately to seeing Ginny for the first time. Apparently, you’re never too old to have life-changing revelations about yourself. Not even once you’ve died and woken up into a new world._

“What do we do if he doesn’t remember?” He whispers hoarsely. 

“He has to. He just has to,” Hermione whispers back, looking as if she’s going to be sick at any moment. 

She takes a deep breath before grabbing his left hand and pulling him out of the trees with her. Ron’s head snaps towards theirs surprisingly fast, and there’s a moment where time seems to stand still as they stare at each other. Ron’s eyes are impossibly wide and Merlin, Harry had forgotten how gangly and pale Ron was at this age. 

A broken noise escapes Hermione before she can stop it and Harry feels his chest seize up, _what if he doesn’t remember? What do we do?_

The moment breaks, glistening pieces of _what-could-have-beens_ floating away, and Ron surges forward, face relieved in a way that doesn’t match the situation. 

“In the woods, go back, before mum sees you,” he all but hisses at them, shooing them away as he throws worried looks over his shoulder. 

They do as he says, too shocked to do anything but listen. They scramble into the woods a few steps until they’re sure the trees will hide them and then they turn, only to find Ron staring at them, a grin stretching across his face as he bounces on his feet. 

“So, you lot finally remember huh?”   


➳

  
Luna Lovegood wakes up sobbing in a small room, in a house that only a few people know of, in the middle of London. Wakes up sobbing so hard it feels as if her chest will explode from for the force of her grief, from the force of her joy, from the fierce rush of _merlin, I missed you, I missed you, I missed yo—_

She wakes up sobbing loud enough that it wakes her father in the next room and Xenophilius rushes to her side but all his attempts to comfort her are useless and end with him hovering, hands shaking as he watches her curl into herself, sobs racking her body. 

“He is coming,” she sobs, repeats the words over and over like a mantra, a _prayer_. Repeats the words over and over even as she chokes on them around her sobs. The sobs have not stopped by the time Xenophilius summons Thomas Moregrave, although to be fair, it does not take long for him to admit he cannot do anything to help his darling moon child. 

Thomas Moregrave arrives in a flurry of dark robes and dark eyes, cutting a figure that gives away none of the stress that he feels. He watches his favourite child sob and feels something suspiciously close to concern growing in his chest. Luna has always been his favourite for her knack of saying things that seem to come true. For the way she has of knowing things that no child or teenager should possibly know. 

His favourite because of how he has never scared her even at his worst. His most feared for the way she has of looking straight through him as if she can see all the thoughts he keeps buried down below. An irrational fear to be sure and yet, with the way she speaks it sometimes seems less irrational and more a practical precaution. 

“He is coming, we are saved,” the change of phrase has them both standing even more rigidly. It’s been close to two hours at this point and the sudden change of phrase has done nothing to break her sobs. Has done nothing but make it harder for her to get the words out around her tears. 

It is hours before her sobs calm. He can see sunlight beginning to peek through the curtains before he thinks to reach out and brush her hair off of her tear-stained cheeks. She’s been leaning against him for hours now, but this is the first time that he’s thought to reach out to her. 

It causes her sobs to stop abruptly, her eyes catching his, and he freezes, fingers still caught on her hair. 

_“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lords approaches… born to those who have thrice defied them, born as the seventh month dies… and Death will mark him as an equal, and he will have a power the Dark Lords know not… and either of the lords must die for none can thrive while they survive…”_

Her words reek of prophecy even as she slips into sleep. He watches the sunrise, uneasiness settling in his bones. This war has been going on for far too long and he doesn’t know what it means that there is only now a prophecy being made. 

Unbidden, another prophecy from many years ago flashes through his mind and his skin goes cold at the similarities. He thinks of a boy still barely grown offering him a prophecy in hopes of pleasing him, of shattered crystal balls and choices just barely made. Can’t help but wonder, how close had he come to irreversibly destroying everything he had worked for?  


➳

  
“So, you lot finally remember huh?” Ron grins, giddy and joyful as if they’re not all teenagers again in an unrecognizable world. 

“Excuse me?” Hermione’s voice rings out incredulously, the words echoing through the trees. 

Ron glances over his shoulder uneasily before turning back to them, smile a bit more sheepish. “Sorry, just, I expected us to be out of Hogwarts before you remembered at the rate we were going.”

“You—” her voice breaks. “You remember me?” She asks, sounding impossibly small. Ron’s eyes widen in alarm before he rushes forward, pulling her into a hug. 

Harry is still awkwardly standing to the side, Hermione _still_ clutching his hand in a death grip and refusing to let go. It feels as if his heart hasn’t quite figured out how to beat a proper rhythm again. Feels as if he’s going to burst into tears or joyful laughter or both. Feels as if his ribs have finally slotted back into their proper place, that permanent pressure that’s been present ever since he awoke finally vanishing. 

“‘Course I remember you,” he hears Ron whisper into her hair. “Brightest, bossiest witch of our age. How could I ever forget you?”

They stay like that for a moment longer until Ron raises his head just slightly, eyes locking on Harry’s. He doesn’t know what Ron sees but whatever it is his eyes widen in alarm before he shuffles closer, dragging Harry into the hug. They stay like that far longer than they should, pressed up against each other, listening to the others breathing and reveling in the fact that at least they have each other. If nothing else goes right at least they’re together. 

“You’ve both run away from home then?” Ron finally asks, backing up slightly, hands never leaving their arms. 

Harry shares an uneasy glance with Hermione, the memory of his parents' panic-stricken faces still clear in his mind, and they both nod. 

“Something like that,” he mutters, voice tight, emotion clogging his throat. 

Ron sighs and throws another glance over his shoulder, a wistful edge creeping into his expression before he squares his shoulders. 

“Alright, mum doesn’t know anything is up yet, can you both meet me at kings cross, right outside the barrier. I need my trunk.” 

“Don’t you dare let yourself get stuck on that train,” Hermione says fiercely, pressing a kiss to Ron’s cheek and stepping back. 

“Really don’t fancy breaking you out of Hogwarts, so what she said,” he says, pulling Ron into a hug, his fingers digging into Ron’s shoulder. 

“S’only me and Ginny this year,” Ron says quietly. “It’ll be fine. Just make sure you’re both there. We’ll have to leave quickly.” 

“We’ll be there,” he and Hermione say at the same time, hands gravitating back together. 

Ron’s smile burns the back of his eyelids, the panic of separation still tasting just as fresh the thousandth time as it had the first.   


➳

  
They find an out of the way bench that has a good view of the barrier leading to platform 9 & 3/4’s. Hermione, after a moment of concentration, still fighting with the divide in her memories, casts their usual charms so that they won’t be recognized by anyone but Ron. 

He leans his head on her shoulder afterwards and asks, “Where are we going to go?”

She sighs, crosses her legs, fingers tapping against the bench. “I don’t know,” she admits softly. “Normally I’d suggest the…” she trails off, eyes going vacant, fingers gone still. 

He waits, no use saying anything when she goes off like that. 

“We’re going to Godric’s Hollow,” she says decisively, ignoring the way he inhales, choking on air. 

“What?!” 

“No one will possibly think to look for us there,” she says slowly, still half gone in whatever thought she’s had. “You didn’t grow up in Godric’s Hollow this time, did you?”

He blinks, racks his memory, the memories of this life still shift oddly, sliding in and out of place, making it hard to pin down. “No,” he says softly. “No, we’ve never been to Godric’s Hollow. Not in this life.” 

“They never had to hide,” she murmurs, presses a gentle hand to his cheek. “And so they’ll never look for us there because it holds no significance to them.”

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Hermione wipes the tears off his face. “They’re alive and I left, I had to leave and they’re _alive_ Hermione and I left them. “

“I know,” she sighs, pulling him into a hug, and stroking his hair. “I know.”   


➳

  
They go to Godric’s Hollow and Harry spends a long time staring at the vacant house on the outskirts of the town, its walls still whole. Stands in front of the house that his parents have never lived in, hands shoved in his pockets, trying to decipher the tangle of emotions curled up tight in his chest. 

Hermione and Ron leave him alone for a short while but eventually come and drag him away with gentle hands. 

“There’s a tea shop,” Hermione says, exhaustion weighing down her words. “I never had breakfast and I imagine you didn’t either.”

“I’m not really dressed to go in a shop,” Harry mutters, belatedly remembering that he’s still in his nightclothes. 

“Laid out some of my clothes in the inn,” Ron says helpfully, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Reckon they’ll fit ya better this time around!”

He huffs out a laugh as he realizes that Ron’s right. Last time they’d been seventeen, Ron had stood a good head taller than him. This time around, it looks like they’re the same height. 

He gasps, slanting a look down at Hermione. “Hermione! You’re the short one this time!” He exclaims gleefully, elbowing Ron in the side. 

She glares at them, crossing her arms, nose wrinkled. “All the better to stab you,” she mutters, sticking out her tongue. 

Ron laughs, arm still slung over his shoulders, body shaking with amusement. “Careful mate, you know she’ll do it.”

“Nah, she loves me too much,” he says and immediately regrets saying as the air suddenly goes tight, Hermione and Ron exchanging a loaded look that he can’t decipher. Something that, while he’d gotten used to it, he did not enjoy being in the middle of. 

“I do,” she says quietly, the silence has dragged too long for it to sound natural but he says nothing, lets it slide as he always has, knowing that they’d tell him if they wanted him to know. “You know I do.”

He swallows, not sure why his throat suddenly feels too tight. “That’s good,” he mutters, is nearly grateful when Ron’s arm drops so they can walk up the stairs to the rooms. 

The silence carries, awkward for reasons he can’t comprehend, even as he slips on Ron’s clothes, taking a moment to bury his face in the Weasley sweater he’d been given, and drinking in the familiar smell. He has to choke down a fresh wave of tears, chokes down a fresh wave of _it’s not fair, it’s not._

At least he has Ron and Hermione, he thinks to himself. At least he’s not all by himself bearing this burden alone. 

At least there’s that.   


➳

  
By the time they finish getting lunch and get back to the inn once again, the silence has nearly been forgotten as they joke with each other, all of them furiously trying to not think of what they need to talk about. 

They end up sitting cross-legged on the larger of the two beds, knee to knee, three points of a triangle, all of them uneasy and fidgeting. 

“So,” Hermione starts, biting her lip and then stands back up to dig through Ron’s truck. Ron just watches her with quiet amusement, smiling as she complains about the mess he keeps his trunk in. 

“So,” she starts again, settled back down with a quill and parchment. “What’s different this time?”

Ron’s lips thin, face gone solemn. “Grindewald is still alive and active,” he says darkly and yes, Harry thinks distantly, yes, he does recall that. 

Recalls his mum and dad speaking in hushed tones, newspapers spread out on the table. Hermione hums, jotting it down and tapping the quill against the paper. 

“He’s still active but the muggle side, the nazi’s still fell,” she says slowly, face scrunched in confusion. “But he’s still active. Why? How? Why hasn’t Dumbledore stopped him?”

If possible Ron looks even more serious, face gone pale, freckles standing out starkly even in the dim lighting. “Right, see that’s the thing, remember how, last time when we were searching for the horcruxes, we found out that Dumbledore and Grindewald used to know each other,” he swallows, glancing away, hands gripping his thighs tightly. “I think they’re still working together.” 

The quill falls from Hermione’s fingers as she presses shaking fingers to her mouth. Harry fights down the urge to start laughing, bitterness welling up as he presses his face to his hands, shoulders shaking. 

“Why… how did you… what makes you think that?” Hermione manages, hands still shaking. 

Ron sighs and runs a hand over his face even as he presses his other to Harry’s thigh in comfort. “A lot of things, for starters, I’ve had my memories back for a year now,” he ploughs on ignoring the way they both stiffen in surprise. “So last year, while you both were busy with classes, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out _why_ our memories would come here.”

“And?” Hermione demands.

“It, it’s hard to explain,” he says, rubbing his face again. “There’s no definite proof, and no one I could ask without raising suspicion but, if you look, if you have all the clues I have from our last life,” his mouth twists, fingers digging painfully into Harry’s skin. “If you look, it’s there. Dumbledore’s absences from the school lining up with Grindewald moving on a wizarding village. Dumbledore’s refusal, even now, all these years later, to fight him. The way more and more Hogwarts students are joining Grindewald, students that Dumbledore is seen talking to more than others and of course, the rumours, that Grindewald has a partner.”

“Fuck,” Hermione hisses and Harry finds himself wholly echoing the sentiment. “Your parents?” She asks. 

“Devout followers of Dumbledore,” Ron says bitterly. “It’s hard to tell with everyone else. Charlie is still in Romania on the dragon reserve, Bill’s still in Egypt, never met Fleur. Percy’s working in the ministry, probably not even aware of the rest of it. The twins—” he scowls at the bed. “—the twins fucked off as soon as they graduated and we haven’t heard from them since. I tried to owl them last year and they never answered, mum’s still a mess about it. Ginny talked to Dumbledore four times last year, in private.” Ron looks sick at the thought of it. 

“This has to be why,” he says quietly, flopping back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. “This must be why we’re back.” 

Hermione and Ron both groan in agreement, sounding about as happy as he feels about the whole mess. “What about your parents, Harry?” Hermione asks tentatively. 

He frowns, digs through his memories. His parents… they didn’t talk about politics with him, did they? They read the paper religiously, his dad always frowning as he read it. On mornings that Sirius was there, Sirius would make fun of him for it, for the way he frowned at the paper. 

His mum was a healer, his dad and Sirius both aurors. Remus had been the one to take care of him as a child while they were all at work, and try as he might, no matter how hard he strains his memories, he cannot recall ever meeting Peter despite the lack of betrayal. 

“I can’t say for sure,” he says slowly, still combing through his memories. “But, before I got my memories, when I’d talk about Dumbledore, mum would frown a lot. Sirius…” hadn’t Sirius said something once? Something that at the time had left Harry confused, the words going over his head. “Sirius said once, I had asked why Dumbledore didn’t fight Grindewald, I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t? If not to help then for glory yeah? And Sirius was there, and he said, he said, ‘well your mum wouldn’t kill your dad, would she now?’”

Ron fake retches. “Oh Merlin, I hadn’t even considered, ugh, I didn’t need to know that.” 

Hermione hums, quill scribbling away now that some of the shock has worn off. “How did your parents react?” 

He shrugs, “Dad hit his shoulder and mum threw a pillow at him, they both look unhappy with him and I didn’t get it at all and didn’t ask again.” 

“Are they working against them then?” Hermione muses. 

“I think there’s a third person,” Ron mutters. “I’ve heard mum whispering to dad about someone causing Dumbledore problems, but they always just say ‘him’, never a name.” 

They sit quietly for a while, Ron flopping down next to him and elbowing him out of the middle of the bed. 

“We could go talk to Sirius,” he suggests hesitantly after it’s clear none of them are going to think of anything else. 

An awkward pause and then Hermione asks, “Your parents…?”

“They won’t be there, they never stay at Sirius’s house, mum says she’s heard Remus and Sirius having sex one to many times to ever stay there again.”  
Ron fake retches again, elbowing Harry in the side. “Why’d ya have to tell us that!”

“Oh shut up,” he mutters, elbowing Ron back. “I get it, like I didn’t have to listen to you two have sex when we got our first apartment.” 

The awkward, heavy air from earlier comes back and he uselessly finds himself wishing he could take the words back, even if he doesn’t know why. 

“We’ll sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning,” Hermione says finally, dropping her parchment on the floor and laying down on Ron’s other side. 

“In the morning,” Ron agrees. “Harry can you still…?” 

He snorts, waving a hand and turning off the lights, the curtains closing on their own. “It’s only my body that’s seventeen you ass.”

Ron shrugs, “Thank merlin, your emotions were a nightmare at seventeen mate.” 

“Boys, please, I haven’t been this tired since that time Harry got kidnapped by that wannabe dark lord in 2030, please sleep.”

They laugh and neither of them tells him to move, and he’s already so comfortable, Ron’s body a comforting warmth next to him, Hermione’s breathing just barely audible from where he is, and before he knows it, he’s fallen asleep.   


➳

  
The next morning holds no more ideas than the previous night and so, with heavy feet and clenched fists, they apparate to the outskirts of London where a small, ivy-covered cottage sits. Sirius’s present to Remus for their fifth anniversary. 

They exchange uneasy glances, wands gripped tightly in hand as they knock on the door. 

They can hear yelling from the inside of the house right before the door is flung open. 

“What do you—” Sirius nearly yells in their faces before snapping his mouth shut abruptly, eyes narrowing at the three of them. 

“Hey, pads. Don’t suppose we could come in?” Harry asks sheepishly. 

Sirius stares at them for a minute, eyes flashing wildly between the three of them, before he turns and yells into the house, “HEY MOONY, YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHICH BRAT JUST HAD THE NERVE TO TURN UP ON OUR DOORSTEP!”  


➳

  
Harry’s not quite sure how to interpret the look on Sirius’s face. They’ve only just entered the house, the three of them standing awkwardly in Sirius’s tiny living room, while Sirius leans against the doorway leading to the kitchen and stares, clearly waiting on Remus to come downstairs. 

Harry takes the time to really observe Sirius now that acting normal was out the window. He looks both similar to the man that Harry knew and yet not at all the same. His hair hangs past his shoulders, a messy top knot tied high, his face holding none of the gauntness that had come from spending far too long in Azkaban. He has his wand shoved through his bun, which makes Harry absently wonder if Moody is around anymore. He can’t imagine that the Moody of his world would have let any of the aurors get in the habit of shoving their wand in their hair. 

It’s not his Sirius, the t-shirt for a band Harry’s never heard of and the jeans only serving to emphasize that point. It’s not _his_ Sirius and yet, he can’t find it in himself to be sad about that when the Sirius in front of him is healthy and happy and _free_. 

Remus arrives in a flurry of movement, clambering down the stairs and running directly into Sirius. 

“For fucks’ sake, Moony. Watch it!” Sirius exclaims, moving out of the way but never taking his eyes off of the three of them. 

_“Harry,”_ Remus breathes and Harry flinches, the amount of worry held in that one word causing guilt to once again well up inside of him. 

“You know prongslet, when I tell you every year to cause chaos at school, I do mean to do it _at_ school,” Sirius finally says wryly. 

“I felt like a change of pace,” he responds dryly, shoving his hands in his pockets to hide the shaking. He’s vaguely aware, in a distant sort of way, that his breathing has gone shallow, heartbeat pounding in his ears and that Remus has taken a step forward, hand half outstretched in concern. But he doesn’t really, properly register the panic that’s creeping through him until Ron abruptly twists in front of him, blocking Sirius and Remus from view, and grabs his face with both hands. 

“Harry, come on mate, you need to breathe,” Ron murmurs, leans his forward against Harry’s and Harry gasps in a breath, chest feeling as if it’s going to shatter to pieces. “Follow my breathing, yeah? Nice and slow, just like in Brazil.” 

He does what Ron says, even as he presses a fist to his chest trying to alleviate the pressure there. He listens to Ron’s breathing, to the steadiness of his breaths. Listens and lets it fill him up until he can’t hear anything else at all. 

They used to do this after the war, whenever one of them would get too overwhelmed in the field. But Merlin, it’s been years since they’d had to do it. Years since either of them got worked up enough to need it. 

Ron doesn’t move until he feels some of the tension leak out of Harry’s body. Doesn’t move until Harry’s breathing has evened out. “You good?” He whispers, hands still warm against Harry’s face. “We can leave if you need us too.” The words are so quiet that he can barely hear them, although he’s sure Remus heard them regardless of Ron’s efforts. 

He shakes his head, takes another deep breath. “I’m good, we’re already here, we need information. I’ll be fine,” he says when Ron opens his mouth to object. Ron sighs but moves away, back to Harry’s left. 

Ron moving aside reveals Hermione standing in front of them, wand out, shoulders tense. Sirius and Remus are both wearing politely bemused expressions, clearly unsure what is going on. 

“So Harry,” Sirius says lightly, nickname gone. “Want to explain why Lily and James flooed us yesterday in an absolute panic because you’d gone and run off? Or why you’re here and not on the train? Or why you’re with a _Weasley_ ,” he spits out the name as if it’s a curse and Harry stares, the absurdity of the situation far more overwhelming than he’d been expecting. 

“I’m very curious about Ron there actually,” Remus says mildly. “I know for a fact that you’ve never met any of the Weasley’s outside of school, and proclaimed many times that you would never be friends with one.”

He wrinkles his nose, thinks back and yes… it seems he had done that. He doesn’t recall ever having a full conversation with Ron, not once in the last six years, even though they shared a house and a dorm. He’d been friends almost exclusively with Neville and Luna for his entire childhood before Hogwarts and then, once he’d gotten to Hogwarts, he’d flitted between groups, never really having any truly close friends. 

He’s not even sure where to begin. Not sure how much to tell them or how to feel about this strange world where he never became friends with Hermione and Ron. Hermione shifts, finally moving back to his right, hand slipping into his and squeezing comfortingly. 

“You remember ‘bout a month ago? Remember how I woke up screaming? I’m sure dad told you about it,” he says, trying to act like the word ‘dad’ doesn’t still feel foreign in his mouth. Sirius’s eyes go sharp and he can feel his hands shaking. 

“‘Course, you wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, even though it was _clear_ that it wasn’t just a bad dream.”

“In a way that was the truth,” he says, laughing softly. “It just wasn’t the entire truth.”

Sirius is frowning, looking as if he’s five seconds from bolting for the floo. Remus is staring at him, eyes narrowed and Harry can see his nostrils flared as he smells for lies. The pity is, there aren’t any lies to be found. 

“Hermione, how much are we telling them?” 

She glances at him and then back at Sirius and Remus. “However much you want to, Harry.” She hesitates, glances at everyone again. “Just remember who they are now, not who they were then,” she says quietly and Remus’s eyes narrow even further. 

“In for a knut, in for a galleon,” Ron mutters on his other side, ignoring Hermione’s glare. 

“So, right, well, guess I might as well just spit out the important bit then,” he licks his lips, tugs at his shirt, squeezes Hermione’s hand, his own hands trembling. “On August 1st, I woke up in this body after having closed my eyes for the last time on March 4th in the year 2260. I didn’t handle it well for sure—” Sirius’s eyes have gone comically wide, mouth half-open. Remus’s eyebrows are nearly to his hairline, lips pinched tight. “—and then when I panicked yesterday, I managed to pull Hermione’s memories from our first life forward as well. Ron’s had his memories for ‘bout a year now, we’re not sure why.”

There’s a long, tense silence as Sirius and Remus stare at them. A silence that’s finally broken by Sirius’s harsh laughter. 

“Bullshit,” he says, voice hard. “I don’t know what kind of prank you’re trying to play but—”

“He’s telling the truth, Sirius,” Remus says calmly, ignoring the wide-eyed disbelief in favour of staring at Harry with eyes that can’t seem to decide between sympathy or suspicion. “That’s not why you’re here though. Why did you come here? Why us?”

He looks to Hermione, not sure how to best articulate that, only to find her and Ron staring at each other, having a conversation that seems to consist of nothing but her frown steadily becoming more pronounced and Ron’s eyes getting more and more intense. 

He has to bite down the urge to take a step back. He’s always hated being in between them when they did this and that certainly hasn’t changed now that they’re all teenagers again. He turns his gaze back to Sirius and feels ice settle in his stomach. Sirius has never looked at him like that, not in this life and not in the last and Harry hates it. He _hates, hates, hates_ it. 

“If you were to hazard a guess, why would you say we’re here?” Hermione asks suddenly, turning her stare on Remus. 

Remus blinks at her, rocks back on his heels and hums quietly. “I’m sure I couldn’t possibly know. You haven’t given us enough information to hazard a guess.”   
“Who are you loyal to?” Ron asks sharply, head tilted, fingers tapping out a steady rhythm against his thigh. 

Remus’s eyes narrow, taking them all in and Harry glances at Sirius again, thoughts feeling sluggish, a half-remembered memory vying for his attention. _“Look at you prongslet, eight years old! What do you want for your birthday this year?”_

“What the hell does that mean?” Sirius barks, pushing off the wall, pulling his wand from his hair. 

_“I want a friend!” He exclaims, bouncing with excitement. His dogfather always, always gets him what he asks for!_

_Padfoot looks at him, and even at eight-years-old, Harry can tell that he’s surprised. “You have friends, prongslet,” he says confused. “What’s wrong with Neville and Luna?”_

_Harry bites his lip, there’s nothing wrong with them. Not really. He loves Neville and Luna. But he doesn’t know how to tell his dogfather that they’re not the right friends._

_“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbles, shrugging. “They’re just wrong. Wrong friends and I want the right friends.”_

_Sirius stares for a minute, lips pursed and forehead creased in concern. “Alright, well let’s go to Diagon and maybe we can find you some more friends,” he says slowly, picking Harry up and tossing him in the air._

_Harry screams in excitement, his earlier distress already forgotten._

“HARRY!”

He blinks, shakes his head sharply trying to get rid of the fuzz still clinging to his thoughts. He hadn’t even realized that he’d spaced out, lost in the memory, in the implications of what he’d asked. Hermione is standing in front of him chewing aggressively on her lip and he realizes he has no idea how many times she’s called his name. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, rubbing at his forehead, trying to relieve some of the tension. “I spaced out for a bit there.”

She doesn’t answer, eyes locked on his forehead, lips parted in surprise. “It’s not there,” she whispers, grimacing a second later. “I knew that, know that,” she corrects, stepping back, eyes still considering. 

“Right, I’ve had enough of this,” Sirius snaps, and Hermione whirls around, wand already up and pointed, Ron right beside her, tension radiating from his shoulders. 

It only takes a second for Harry to realize they’ve gone and put themselves in front of him again. Again. As usual. He’s long given up hope of getting them to stop doing that. 

“What the fuck,” Sirius says flatly. “I’m not going to hurt my own godson.”

“Not to be rude, but you don’t seem to believe a word we’ve said,” Ron says pleasantly, shifting to block Harry when he tries to step forward. Harry shoves him, slotting himself back in between them and elbowing Hermione when she tries to push him back. 

“No, Sirius you’re right,” Remus says, watching them with a strange look that Harry doesn’t understand. “Go call him, he’ll want to know about this anyway, he might as well be here while we figure the rest of this out.”

“Who’s he?” Ron asks sharply, taking a step towards Sirius. “Not Dumbledore?” 

Sirius’s eyes dart to him, surprise flashing over his face. “Huh. A Weasley that doesn’t trust Dumbledore, never thought I’d see the day,” he says amused. “No, not Dumbledore. No worries on that part.”

Sirius summons his patronus, whispering something too soft for any of them to hear and they all watch as it takes off through the wall. 

“Guess we’re gonna find out who the mysterious ‘him’ is,” Ron mutters, looking none too pleased about the matter. 

“A Weasley that doesn’t like Dumbledore,” Sirius says again, tilting his head and laughing. “I would pay good money to see Molly’s face when she finds out.” 

Ron grimaces and Remus sighs, leaning back against the wall, head thunking against the wall loudly. “Molly and Arthur are going to be going mad looking for you aren’t they?” Remus sounds exhausted. 

“Er, yeah, bad luck there. No way to get away without them knowing.”

“And you?” Remus asks, pointing at Hermione. 

“I’m a muggleborn,” she says quietly. “My parents won’t be able to alert anyone until a teacher goes to ask after me.” 

Remus sighs, purposefully letting his head thunk against the wall again. 

“Moony stop that,” Sirius says, laughter in his voice. 

“I’ll stop when we no longer have _missing children_ in our house,” Remus says, meeting Sirius’s eyes before thunking his head against the wall again. 

Sirius rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to say something and then closing it again as the floo sounds from the kitchen. 

“Black, where are you? This had better be important,” a voice calls out, masculine and just familiar enough that Harry feels goosebumps break out on his arms. 

Hermione stiffens abruptly, sucking in a sharp breath and half turning towards him. 

“We’re in here boss!” Sirius yells, not bothering to move from his spot. 

Harry glances again at Remus, his arms firmly crossed, his stare fixed firmly on Harry himself. And then, he looks back to the doorway, right as a man he knows and yet doesn’t, walks through the door. Looks back at the door and sucks a breath in sharply at the white-hot flash of fire that spikes through his chest, his fingers gone numb, skin too tight. 

Because in the doorway is none other than Tom bloody Riddle in his prime. 

Or perhaps, based on the red eyes, it would be more appropriate, to say there stands Voldemort, still masquerading as a human. Harry doesn’t know or care. 

The white-hot flash of pain spikes again, something long forgotten shifting in his chest and his vision goes white, mouth open, throat working furiously on a scream that won’t leave his mouth. The fire curls through his chest and through his veins, twining itself around his heart as if it belongs there, resting in his lungs, and banging at the wall of his ribs. For a moment, vision gone, heart furiously racing, it seems as if his world has narrowed down to nothing but the heat in his chest and the pounding of his own too fragile life. 

When he becomes aware of anything else at all he finds himself kneeling on the floor, palms pressed flat to the rug, chest heaving as if he'd run a great distance, throat dry heaving, and curiously, ever so curiously, the right side of his face is _burning_ , dragging his memories back to fifth year and the lancing pain of his scar. 

Hermione’s hands are pressed to his face, cool against his skin and he distantly registers Ron yelling and someone else screaming, Sirius’s frantic voice mere background noise in comparison. 

“Hermione,” he croaks out, throat protesting. “Hermione, my scar, it hurts.”

Her hands go tight against his face and he feels cool lips press themselves to his cheek. “It’s going to be fine,” she murmurs, whisper on the wind, he believes her. 

“Yeah, ‘know, you’re ‘ere,” he slurs out and right before he blacks out, the fire spiking it’s way through his chest once more, he opens his eyes and sees Voldemort slumped against a wall, Sirius hovering over him, eyes frantic. 

_Good_ , he thinks, _good, I hope it burns._   


➳

  
He doesn’t remember passing out but he must have because when he opens his eyes there’s nothing but white as far as his eyes can see. The whiteness of the train station, that has haunted his dreams his entire life, stretching out before him. 

He breathes in deeply, looking down at his hands and laughing in delight when he sees that they’re his hands. His scarred, calloused hands. The words _‘I must not tell lies’_ carved into the back of one and a long thin scar in the middle of his palm that he’d gotten on one of his first auror missions. This body must be around twenty-one and he can’t help but wonder why this age? 

He rolls his shoulder, looks around the train station again. He doesn’t recall dying, seeing Voldemort had certainly been a shock but last he remembers, Voldemort had been slumped against a wall, face creased with pain. So why is he here? 

_We did not think you would meet him so early._

He yelps, spinning around and freezing. There’s a being standing there, the figure dark and imposing. It keeps flashing between the figures of his children and he closes his eyes against the dizzying picture it makes. Squeezes them shut and breathes in around the pain in his chest. Opens them slowly and squints at the being, the flashing has stopped and instead, there stands Snape looking exactly as he had back in Harry’s first year. 

It’s still weird but, he supposes anything is better than the flashing figures of his children. 

“What are you?” He asks, although he already has a sinking suspicion that he knows. 

_You know me,_ the voice says, echoing through the station, Snape’s mouth not once opening. _You are still too young to perceive my true form and so I have picked this one for now._

He blinks, yeah, still weird. “Why am I here?”

_You were not meant to meet him so early._

He narrows his eyes. Him? “Who? Voldemort? Why not?” 

_Your soul had not yet settled in that time, it draws forth that which would be better forgotten._

Oh... well isn’t that just great. “Why am I in this time?” He pleads. Surely this being must know. 

_All will be revealed in time,_ the voice says, echoes causing the white to ripple as if it wishes to reveal what’s beneath it. _For now, I believe it is time you left this place._

He opens his mouth to say something else, to beg for answers, but it’s too late and he has to squeeze eyes shut again as the station starts rapidly spinning.   


➳

  
He wakes up to arguing. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised by this. 

“He’s my godson! You don’t get to keep me away from him,” Sirius snarls. 

He tries not to let on that he’s awake, lets the warmth of Sirius’s concern fill him up. 

“He was ours long before he belonged to you,” Ron snaps back and Harry twitches, eyes nearly opening before he remembers himself.   
“Ron!” Hermione exclaims, “He doesn’t belong to any of us! For Merlin’s sake, he isn’t a toy to fight over!” 

“You feel the same way Hermione, no use pretending you don’t.” 

Harry can feel his eyebrows steadily climbing and figures they must have their backs to him if they haven’t noticed. He opens his eyes a crack and is met with the sight of Hermione and Ron’s backs. They’re standing in front of the couch they’ve laid him on, presumably stopping Sirius from getting closer. If he strains his ears he can hear clattering from the kitchen, which he can only assume is where Remus has gone. 

Considering the ominous statement the false Snape had left him with, he’s beginning to regret coming here. Getting other people involved has never worked well for them, he really can’t imagine why he had thought that would change now. 

He turns his eyes to the end of the couch and freezes when he locks eyes with none other than fucking Voldemort himself. 

Voldemort is leaning against the wall, although, really, considering how pale he is, it might be more accurate to say that the wall is holding him up. He’s watching Harry with a speculative look that leaves goosebumps breaking out on his skin and makes him wish he was anywhere but here. 

Ron, Hermione and Sirius are still arguing off to the side but he tunes them out as he continues to stare at Voldemort. 

He doesn’t know what it means that Sirius and Remus can summon Voldemort himself to their house at will. Or what it means that they have no fear of having him around Harry. Can’t help but wonder if his parents know about this? If they also could call Voldemort to their house with nothing but a patronus and some whispered words. 

Voldemort smirks, looking pleased even though Harry knows he must feel just as shitty as Harry does right now, and then—

_“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lords approaches,”_ Voldemort murmurs, voice just barely loud enough to carry to Harry’s ears, his voice just as cool and collected as Harry remembers. 

There’s a split second where the room goes silent, even the clinking of china coming from the kitchen stopping, and time seems to hang suspended as everyone turns to stare at Voldemort. 

And then chaos breaks out.   


➳

  



	2. Chapter 2

_History repeats itself. Somebody says this._

_History throws its shadows over the beginning,_

_over the desktop,_

_over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters._

_History is a little man in a brown suit_

_trying to define a room he is outside of._

_I know history. There are many names in history_

_but none of them are ours._

Richard Siken

  


➳

  
_“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lords approaches.”_

His heart stutters, falters, words he hasn’t heard in years slithering through his head and leaving him with a long-forgotten fear. There’s a moment where he distantly registers Hermione scream, and Ron turning towards him, panic written across his face. A moment where his heartbeat slows and everything in his brains seems to shift just ever so slightly right. 

_A moment where a part of him, that he hates to acknowledge, blinks itself awake, and smiles. And he can feel the invisibility cloak in a drawer, in a dresser at his parents' house and the stone burning bright on Voldemort’s finger. And in a house, on a cobblestone lined street in Germany, a man with blonde hair holds a wand that screams for its master. All of this he feels and pushes away just as he has so many times before._

He breathes out. Breathes in easily, the whole of himself finally slotting back into place and this body is not the one he had grown used to over the years but it no longer feels so absurdly strange to call these hands his, this beating heart, these straining lungs. 

“Honestly,” he scoffs, laughing shortly. “Fucking honestly.” He sits up, rolls his shoulders, swings his feet off the couch. 

The room has gone silent, everyone watching him, the air heavy with expectations. He stretches slowly, makes eye contact with Remus as he steps out of the kitchen, tea tray in hand. Sirius shifts restlessly, taking a step forward and Hermione narrows her eyes aggressively, stepping to meet him. Voldemort hasn’t stopped staring at Harry, not even for a second. Just stares with speculative eyes and a strange downturned frown that Harry can’t recall ever seeing the Voldemort of his world wear. 

He looks away from Voldemort as Remus pushes a cup of tea in his hands and blinks down at in bemusement. Watches in fascination as Remus does the same to Voldemort, seeming to have no concern for the flat look Voldemort sends him when Remus physically forces the tea into his hand. Before long they’re all standing with cups of tea in their hands, Remus leaning against a wall and clutching his own cup tightly, looking terribly exhausted. 

“Ron, remember that mission to France? The first one.”

Ron frowns at him for a moment, eyebrows creased, mouth silently moving as he works through the memories. “The one with Malfoy and Nott?” 

“Got it in one.” He nods, glances at Hermione, who’s frowning at both of them. “Ready?”

“Am I ever ready when you do this?” He asks with a grimace, already reaching out for Hermione’s wrist. 

“I believe that’s enough of that,” Voldemort snaps out, pushing off the wall, eyes narrowed. “It’s past time for someone in this room to explain what is going on.”

Harry grins, mouth wide and gaping as he grabs hold of his animagus form. He hears shocked exclamations and dimly registers Ron dragging Hermione out of the way. 

There’s a shocked moment of silence where the air seems to hold itself still to accommodate him. He gives a lazy shake of his head, stretches, and enjoys the feel of such a familiar body. Voldemort bites out a curse and Harry tilts his head, bares his teeth in a mimicry of a smile. Ron sighs. 

“Why are you like this?” Ron asks amused. 

“What exactly does this accomplish?” Hermione snaps, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “What did you two do in France? I thought France was a quiet mission?” 

“er…. It was? This didn’t happen on the mission?”

“Ronald Weasley—”

“We’ll tell you later, ‘mione. It wasn’t nothing bad, promise!” Ron says, holding his hands up apologetically. 

He huffs out a breath, nudging her in the side in apology. His animagus form is a bit smaller than he’s used to, coming up only to her ribcage instead of being able to look her in the eye. Although, he’s still larger than any animal or animagus form has any right to be. 

“Harry, stop it,” she mutters, batting at his head and curling a hand into his fur. Ron leans over and whispers something to her, presumably explaining why exactly it’s useful for Harry to be like this. 

“Black, Lupin, explain to me, what exactly is happening here.” Voldemort’s voice slices through the air, ice coating his words. 

Harry turns to watch, sitting down between Ron and Hermione. Ron settles his hand on Harry’s shoulder, wand still clutched tight in his hand, waiting for any sign of Harry tensing. 

Sirius doesn’t look worried despite how cold Voldemort's voice is. He definitely remembers death eaters in his first life looking terrified at all times when in Voldemort’s presence, but Sirius looks more annoyed with the three of them than he does with the literal dark lord leaning against his wall. 

“My godson showed up with these two about a half-hour ago. The redhead is Ronald Weasley, Molly and Arthur’s kid. The other one’s a muggleborn named Hermione,” Voldemort’s eyes narrow at the mention of Molly and Arthur, and Harry fights down the instinctive urge to snarl despite himself. “He claims to have memories of a past life and says they remember the same life.” Sirius waves at Remus to continue, taking a gulp of tea and making eye contact with Harry. If grims could smirk well, Harry would be smirking. 

The urge to smirk vanishes as quick it came, Sirius' thoughts are so far in the gutter its a wonder he can focus on anything else at all. Harry really did not need to know why exactly his godfather and Remus seem to have zero fear of Voldemort. There were some things he could go a whole lifetime without knowing. 

Remus rolls his eyes but takes over. “That’s really all there is to it. They remember a past life, you showed up and you saw what happened there.” Remus shrugs, not elaborating any further and Harry has to swallow down the bile that rises up when he meets Remus’ eyes. Do they both have nothing better to think about right now than what they plan on doing in bed with _literal Voldemort_ later?! 

Despite how easy it is for him to read surface thoughts in this form, it really does not seem to be worth it this time. There were many things he would have been happy never knowing and the fact that Sirius and Remus both seem to constantly have their minds somewhere in the direction of the gutter is one of them. It would have been fine if he'd learned anything useful at all but sadly, the only thing he's learned, is that apparently in this life his godfather and Remus are sleeping with the dark lord. He's going to have nightmares about this. He knows he is. 

Voldemort sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking exasperated. “And is there a reason that Black doesn’t seem to believe them?”

Sirius laughs, “It’s ridiculous! It’s so far-fetched I wouldn’t have used it as an excuse as a first-year.”

Voldemort sighs, closes his eyes and says nothing for a minute, fingers clenched tight around his tea. It almost reminds Harry of the pose he would take when James or Lily came him from school in some sort of trouble — exasperated and fed up. Not a comparison he ever thought he’d be drawing between himself and Voldemort. 

“I truly wonder why I ever let you join my forces Black,” Voldemort finally grits out, pushing off the wall and rolling his shoulders, grimacing slightly as he does so, and Harry can relate to that as well, the effects of whatever had happened still lingering quietly in his chest. “If they say they are telling the truth and all the facts show that they are telling the truth, then _obviously_ what they say is true.” He takes in Sirius’s offended expression and sighs again. “Unless you mean to tell me that your godson could previously turn into a grim the size of a small horse?”

Remus snorts, covering his mouth and laughing into his tea. Harry would dearly love to bleach his brain out, he'll never be able to see these three interact again without thinking about what he's seen in their heads. 

“I mean, obviously no, he couldn’t but—” Sirius mutters. 

“No,” Voldemort cuts him off, waving a hand. “Get out. Both of you just, get out. Go and see if you can help anyone at headquarters. Lupin, if you could check in with Lovegood.” 

“You gonna be out of our house before dinner then boss? Or should we plan on feeding you?” Sirius asks, grinning widely at Voldemort’s glare. The grin drops when Voldemort jerks his head and Sirius moves over to him quickly, leaning close as Voldemort mutters something that Harry can’t quite catch. 

Sirius nods and moves to leave, but not before yelling back over his shoulder. “We’ll bring dinner when we come back, boss that includes you.” 

Remus follows him into the kitchen, still laughing and Harry really, really regrets reading their minds. He deeply regrets it. Voldemort waits until the sound of the floo has stopped before turning towards them. 

“Is he going to turn back anytime soon?” Voldemort asks wryly.

He huffs, standing up and shaking himself out before reaching, grasping and tripping over the coffee table as he unbalances. 

_“Fuck,”_ he hisses, saved from face planting only by Ron’s hand gripping his elbow in the nick of time. “The balance was off.” 

“You shouldn’t have done that to begin with,” Hermione snaps, taking his other arm and pushing him onto the couch, frowning at him. “You had no way of knowing that would work properly in this body.” 

“I knew it’d work,” he says easily, smiling at her apologetically. “I’ll tell you later.” 

“I take it then, based on the reactions you've all had towards me, that in your last life you were all Dumbledore supporters?” Voldemort asks abruptly, moving to sit in Remus’ armchair in the corner. 

Hermione sits down next to Harry, wand still clutched tightly as she watches Voldemort warily. 

Ron opens his mouth to answer and then hesitates, glancing back at Harry. He shrugs, he can’t imagine why it would matter what they tell him. That life is over and done with, and clearly, this life is vastly different from the one they left behind. 

“Dumbledore was very different in our last life,” Ron says slowly, “and so were you.” 

“You know who I am then. You know my name?” Voldemort’s eyes are bright and eager, and Harry smiles bitterly. 

“Oh yes, we know your name Riddle,” he says, just to watch the way the man’s eyes dim, disappointment suffusing every part of his body. “But most people didn’t know that name. Most knew you by Voldemort.”

“Or Lord Voldemort as you liked to call yourself,” Hermione scoffs. 

There’s a split second where a bitter, hungry expression crosses over Voldemort’s face and then it’s gone, swallowed down and all that’s left is this strangely polite version of the dark lord. 

“I see,” Riddle says consideringly, eyes lingering on each of them. “You all seem to be very uncomfortable in my presence. Although, I can’t begin to imagine what interest my other self would have had in three school children.”

Ron chokes trying to hold back a laugh and then has to turn away and bury his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he laughs. Voldemort looks terribly offended as Ron laughs himself to tears. 

“You quoted _that prophecy_ when Harry woke up,” Hermione says quietly, hissing out the word prophecy as if it’s a curse. 

“I did,” Voldemort agrees easily. “And you all recognize it in spite of the fact that only one other person knows of it.” 

“It could be different this time?” Ron mutters, not sounding terribly sure of it himself. 

_“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lords approaches… born to those who have thrice defied them, born as the seventh month dies… and Death will mark him as an equal, and he will have a power the Dark Lords know not… and either of the lords must die for none can thrive while they survive…”_ Voldemort quotes the prophecy slowly and Harry feels something inside of him go jagged at the realization he can see mirrored on Hermione and Ron’s faces. 

He laughs, laughs and laughs and laughs, rage bubbling up in his chest and he wishes he were still really seventeen so that he could justify destroying something. 

“In my last life I killed you,” he hisses, pushing himself up and pacing restlessly. “In my last life, you died at my wand.” 

Voldemort’s lips go pale where they’re pressed together but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “I had suspected,” he says simply, watching Harry pace. 

“Tell us what’s changed,” Hermione says, reaching out and reclaiming her forgotten tea. “Please, we have an idea, but we’re still missing so much.” She curls up in the corner of the couch, wand still in easy reach but something in Voldemort’s manner seems to have reassured her that he isn’t going to attack. 

Harry can’t say that he doesn’t understand it. There’s something calm about this strange version of Voldemort, something settled that had been broken in the one they had faced. He wonders if this is what the Voldemort of his time would have been like if he hadn’t tried to kill Harry all those years ago. 

“What do they call you?” Ron asks abruptly, right as Voldemort opens his mouth, presumably to explain. “Sirius and Remus, what do they know you as?” 

Harry stops pacing, turning towards Voldemort curiously. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might go by something different. 

“They, and most of the rebellion, know me as Thomas Moregrave,” Voldemort says simply as if announcing that the sky is blue and the grass is green. 

Harry goes and collapses back onto the couch next to Hermione, gratefully accepting the tea that Ron picks up and shoves at him before settling himself down onto the couch next to Harry. 

“The rebellion…” Hermione repeats faintly, blindly reaching for Harry’s hand. “You lead the rebellion?” 

“It was a surprise to me as well,” he responds dryly, taking in their dumbfounded looks and sighing. “There was a prophecy before this one,” he starts quietly, staring at a point on the wall behind them, “the bit that I heard was very similar to the one I spoke just now, and it did indeed seem to speak of me and, in all likelihood, Harry Potter as well.”

“I nearly acted upon it,” his mouth twists bitterly, fingers white where they're clenched around the cup, “but one of my followers, one of my best followers, he advised against it and persuaded me to not act upon it. An act that I am very grateful for. Not more than two weeks later, it was heard by a different follower that a prophecy had shattered in the department of ministries, something that is nearly unheard of.” 

_“The divergence point,”_ Hermione whispers. He can nearly hear the wheels of her brain turning. 

Voldemort nods at her in agreement. “Not two weeks after that, a follower of mine came to me with—”

“Can’t you just say their names,” Ron cuts in, eyes narrowed in frustration. “Saying this follower, that follower is horribly confusing for some of us.” 

Harry snorts, knocking his shoulder against Ron’s in agreement.   
Voldemort rolls his eyes, “Yes, very well. As I was saying, not two weeks after that, Rookwood came to me and told me that when his parents hosted Grindewald for dinner, he had mentioned a partner, a spy, hidden away on the light side. As you can imagine, it didn’t take terribly long to figure out who this partner was.”

Oh yes, Harry can imagine all too well. The clues, if you were lucky enough to find them, were terribly, painfully easy to follow. 

“It was, surprisingly, the Potter’s who approached me first—” Harry blinks in shock, feeling as if he’s been hit over the head. “—they had come to some conclusions of their own, and while they weren’t quite right, they were far closer to the truth than many of Dumbledore’s followers.” 

“My parents approached _you_ first?!” He exclaims, glancing wildly at Hermione and Ron who shrug at him in response, both of them looking just as befuddled as he feels. 

“Yes,” Voldemort says dryly, “I was quite shocked as well. But they approached me, which led to Black and Lupin following shortly after, and then the Longbottoms and so on and so on. It seemed as if every person that approached me felt the need to drag their entire family along with them as well.”  
Harry is very proud of himself for not saying anything terribly rude to that. Such as, ‘if you had a family perhaps you’d understand why’. He can only imagine how that would go over. 

“Dumbledore is not aware of very many of them defecting. A few were found out early on, the Lovegoods for example, Pandora didn’t take something that—”

“Pandora?” Who on earth is Pandora?

“Luna’s mum,” Hermione mutters, rolling her eyes at him, which, fair, he really should know that considering how long he’s been friends with Luna. 

Voldemort frowns at them. “Did she not live in your world?” 

“Died before Luna went to Hogwarts,” Ron says, shaking his head, “bad spell explosion.”

“Luna doesn’t go to Hogwarts,” Hermione says frowning. “Where does she go to school?”

“She doesn’t,” Voldemort mutters, looking properly aggravated for the first time. “At the time it wasn’t safe to send any of the children who had families that Dumbledore was aware of defecting, so we formed a, a makeshift school of sorts between all the adults that we had available.”

“How many kids were there?” Ron asks. 

Voldemort grimaces. “Three to start with, then that somehow doubled and continues to double every year it seems like."

“Who were the first three kids?”   
“Luna Lovegood, as I’ve already told you, Draco Malfoy—”

“Malfoy?!” Ron exclaims. “What’s Malfoy got to fear at Hogwarts?!”

“Nothing at all, Narcissa insisted that if she was going to help teach then she’d teach her own son as well instead of sending him off to Hogwarts,” he answers, glaring at Ron. “Now if you’re quite done interrupting me.” 

Ron waves a hand at him, still wrinkling his nose. 

“Neville Longbottom was the last of the original three children,” Voldemort says, pausing expectantly at the, surely, gobsmacked expressions on their faces. 

And yes, now that Harry thinks on it, thinks on his classmates, he can spot missing faces. He’d been far too busy missing Ron and Hermione to give the rest of his schoolmates even a moments thought. 

“I was friends with Neville and Luna before Hogwarts,” he says slowly, the memories hazy and distant. 

“Yes, your parents nearly kept you out of Hogwarts but, Dumbledore doesn’t suspect that they know about him at all, and keeping you from Hogwarts would have ruined that.” 

“Hannah,” Ron says abruptly, face scrunched in thought. “Hannah Abbot, Oliver Wood,” Ron says slowly, and as he says their names Harry realizes that he’s right, he hasn’t met either of them in this life. 

“Merlin,” he mutters. “Gryffindor’s quidditch team _sucked_ without Oliver.” 

“Yes, those were both next,” Voldemort agrees, “the other one was Pansy Parkinson, who also could have attended Hogwarts, but demanded that her child be taught with Malfoy.” He rolls his eyes and Harry can only snicker, he can imagine what her mother was hoping would happen. 

“What exactly are you doing to fight back against them? How many people do you have? Do they all follow you specifically?” Hermione asks, rattling off questions that she’s clearly been building up for a while.   
Voldemort eyes her curiously for a moment, fingers tapping out a slow beat against the arm of the chair and Harry fights down the urge to demand an answer. 

“There is only so much we can do to fight against Dumbledore,” he admits, looking as if the words physically hurt him, “as long as the public is convinced that he’s on their side we can’t kill him. Not without making him a martyr. I haven’t been sure of how many people I have in years. They’re scattered across so many countries and half of them don’t even realize that they follow me, they’re only following their friend is who following a friend who is following me,” he mutters rubbing at his forehead and looking thoroughly put out. 

Hermione frowns, clearly not pleased with either of these answers. 

“Do you mean to say, that you can’t just…” she hesitates, grimaces. “You can’t just kill Dumbledore and make it look like an accident? What does it matter what the people think as long as he’s dead?”

There’s a split second where the dark lord stares at her with wide eyes right before he throws is head back and laughs sharply, the sound terribly close to a cackle and honestly, Harry still can't wrap his head around the fact that Sirius and Remus seem to genuinely _like_ this man. 

“That is what I said as well,” he says once he’s stopped laughing. “However, I have somehow ended up with far too many followers who believe he needs a trial first and of course, a trial cannot happen while the wizarding public deems him good and righteous.”

Hermione looks thoroughly disgusted and Ron groans, dropping his head into his hands with a muttered, _you’ve done it now_. Harry can’t help but agree with him. 

“You’re the dark lord,” she says scathingly, setting her cup down with a decisive clink. “What does it matter what your followers want? If it is in everyone’s best interests to have Dumbledore dead then order him dead. Or even better, _do it yourself_.”

“At one point perhaps that would have worked,” he agrees, still looking horribly amused. “But many of my followers will leave if I do that and I don’t care to see my numbers decimated while Grindelwald is still steadily gaining followers.” 

“And why can’t you fight Grindelwald then?” She demands.   
The amusement drains from his face as quickly as it came and Harry feels almost as if he knows what’s coming before it's even said. 

“We don’t have proof or sources,” he says slowly, eyes dark with anger, “but every person who’s fought him has lost, even when they shouldn’t have. We have suspicions that there’s something strange about his wand and—”  
 _“Of course,”_ Ron whispers, turning to stare at Harry with wide eyes. “Of course, that’s why it’s you. Why it’s the three of us here, in this time.”

He has to close his eyes and remember how to breath around the fury boiling in his lungs. Why did everything always seem to come back to one stupid choice he’d made at seventeen? 

“Well,” he murmurs quietly, swallowing around the burning in his throat, swallowing around the rage, “if the only issue is his wand, I can solve that quite easily.”

Voldemort frowns at him, clearly sceptical, but he ignores it, closing his eyes and reaching for that part of himself that he always keeps locked carefully away. Reaches for the part of himself that can still feel the ring on Voldemort’s hand burning brightly, that could track its way to a two-story house in Germany without ever losing its way. The part of himself that had always known where the cloak was before his dad ever told him about it. 

He reaches and reaches, grasping it carefully in hand, lets it burn through him and then, ever so carefully, he reaches and _pulls_ , the wand flying through space and appearing in his hand, humming happily when it meets his skin, when it returns to where it belongs. He pushes the fire back down carefully, rolls his shoulders and opens his eyes to find Voldemort staring at him with parted lips and shell shocked eyes, something very close to fear bleeding into his expression. 

“Grindelwald seems to have just found himself without a wand,” he says roughly, fighting down the urge to tear the wand in two. He knows from experience that it will do no good and leave him with nothing but a splitting headache. 

The silence holds steady and when he glances at Ron and Hermione he finds them both staring at each other, having another of their silent conversations, Hermione’s fingers digging into his arm where she’s still gripping it. 

_“The hallows are real,”_ Voldemort says breathlessly, the words just barely audible. 

Ron barks out a laugh, tearing his eyes from Hermione’s and smiling flatly. “A lot of impossible things suddenly seem to become possible when you’re friends with Harry.” 

“Shove off,” he mutters, twirling the wand absently and wondering how Grindelwald is reacting to its sudden absence. 

“There, now you can go fight Grindelwald and solve at least one problem,” Hermione says, smiling in satisfaction. 

Voldemort blinks at them all again, and oh yes, that is definitely fear creeping into his expression no matter how hard he’s trying to hide it. 

“And what exactly will the three of you be doing while I go off to fight Grindelwald?” He asks slowly, each word carefully clipped out. 

Harry frowns and glances at Ron who shrugs. They both turn to look at Hermione who is staring at the floor, frowning in concentration as she thinks. None of them had thought that far ahead, they’d just focused on getting here and trying to find out exactly _what_ was going on.

“I suppose we can’t really go to Hogwarts,” she says slowly, tapping her lip thoughtfully. “You already have an idea of what you want us to do though. Don’t you, Thomas?” 

Voldemort smirks, “Perceptive of you. Yes, I do have an idea.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes, waving a hand at him impatiently. 

“You’re correct that the three of you can’t go back to Hogwarts, but you could come to the rebellion headquarters and help teach defense to the teenagers there.” He pauses, considering them for another moment. “I am assuming you all know how to fight if you killed me in your last life…” he says delicately, words trailing off, and the smile he levels them with is eerily reminiscent of the smile that Voldemort had leveled at him all those years ago when he’d walked into a clearing in the forest, wand dangling from his fingers. Is a smile that says, _I am exactly who you remember and yet not the same at all._

He nearly opens his mouth and agrees, more out of lack of anything better to do really, but then hesitates, thoughts catching on red hair and pleading eyes and his dad’s hands reaching, reaching, reaching. 

“My parents will know where I am if we do that,” he murmurs, heart seizing in his chest at how worried they must be. 

“Your parents already know where you are,” Voldemort snaps flatly. “Do you think Black and Lupin didn’t immediately go tell them when they left?”

He supposes, in retrospect, he should have expected it, but all he can hear is the roaring of the ocean in his ears as he realizes what that means. He’s standing up, blood racing, before he can do more than think _no._

It’s inconvenient that before this can coalesce into a full thought, into some sort of plan, that he hears the unmistakable crack of apparition right outside the front door, and he knows, he knows who’s going to walk through, he does and he can’t do this, he is not strong enough to look his parents in the eye and tell them about his last life. He isn’t, he isn’t. 

Hermione grabs his hand and starts pulling him towards the kitchen before he can think any further on it, shooting a vicious glare at Voldemort when he opens his mouth to protest and then glances at Ron questioningly, not once breaking step as she tugs him towards the kitchen. Whatever she sees on Ron’s face must reassure her or answer the question he never heard her ask, and they reach the kitchen just as the door clicks open behind them. 

Hermione shoves him into a chair, gesturing with her wand and casting silencing charms on the room and then it’s just them and the silence of the kitchen that he both recognizes and yet has never seen before at all. 

“Hey,” she murmurs softly, crouching in front of him and taking his hands in hers. “Hey, it’s gonna be alright, yeah?” 

“How?” He chokes out, feeling as if his skin is once again too small to contain him, as if he wants to crawl back into bed and hope that when he wakes up he’ll find this whole thing has been nothing but a bad dream. 

“They’re your parents,” she squeezes his hands, eyes large and concerned as she peers up at him. “They could never hate you, Harry, you know that. You just need to take a minute and breath yeah?” 

“But this is a different world,” he points out, the concern seeming serious. “We don’t know that, we can’t know that.” 

She rolls her eyes and reaches up to tug sharply on his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous, Harry Potter,” she says, exasperation coating her words. “If you would stop panicking and use that brain of yours, you’d know there’s no weight to that concern at all. Yes—” she holds her hand up, cutting him off before he can protest. “—this world is different but I’m not sure there’s any world where your parents could do anything but love you.”

He stares at her, the familiar determined jut of her lip that says she won’t be swayed in her opinion, the face that’s so young and jarring that it still takes him a moment to process it every time he looks at her. “Ron’s right,” he finally says consideringly, smirking at the questioning noise she makes, “you really are the brightest _and_ bossiest witch of our age.” 

A strange look crosses her face, gone and there before he can really make sense of the half grieving look that had seemed to touch her eyes. “Which is why you should listen to me,” she says, laughing lightly, the look nowhere to be found. “I’m always right, remember?”   
“Yeah, yeah,” he snorts, pushing her shoulder lightly and letting some of the tension drain out of his body. “Thank you,” he whispers, not sure how he would have been able to get through any of this without Ron and Hermione. He would have been left floundering, his heart and his rock, gone and left him adrift. 

“You know we’d do anything for you,” she whispers back, that same strange look crossing her eyes again, hand squeezing his in a near painful grip for barely a second before she’s letting go and standing up, brushing the hair from her face. “I’m going to send them in?” She says questioningly, eyeing him carefully.   
“Send Ron too,” he agrees, knowing that he won’t get through this conversation without someone to keep him steady for it. 

“As if he would let himself be left out,” she says, smiling wryly, brushing a kiss over his forehead, and leaving the room before he can do more than part his mouth in surprise.

That’s new. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, that’s an action so old he’d nearly forgotten that she used to do that, lips to his forehead as if she was trying to press goodwill under his skin through nothing more than her own force of will. He can barely remember the last time she kissed his forehead like that. Thinks it might have been shortly before Ginny got pregnant with James. 

Which isn’t to say that she’d stopped kissing him on the cheek in farewell, only that she’d never kissed his forehead as if she was trying to tell him a secret without ever opening her mouth. He thinks there’s an obvious answer to that, one that’s laying just out of reach but he doesn’t have time to try and grasp it before his mum and dad are tentatively walking through the doorway, Ron right behind them. 

The air in the room seems to go still as they stare at each other, his mum’s eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his dad’s not much better. He thinks if he were to look at his mum’s hands he’d find her nails torn down to the quick, his dad’s knuckles raw from punching something that wasn’t meant to be punched.   
“Harry…” she whispers, voice trembling, hands half reaching and he’s out of his seat, halfway to her before he even registers moving. 

She moves the rest of the way before he can think to hesitate, and for the first time, he lets himself truly sink into the hug. He had never expected to have this, his parents real and warm and solid in front of him. Thought he would have to wait and until he reached whatever came in the afterlife to hug them and then, well it wouldn’t be the same really. Perhaps it would feel real, but it wouldn’t be the same. This though, this is them, even if it isn’t the same version of them that died saving him. 

His dad’s arms wrap around them both and he absently realizes that his face is wet, his chest too tight. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes but when he opens them he finds Ron leaning against the doorway, eyes crinkled fondly and it hits Harry like a quaffle to the chest. The obvious answer, that he’d nearly grasped when Hermione kissed his forehead, is right there bleeding through his chest and leaving his brain buzzing with the implications. 

But, he still doesn’t have time to dwell on it and so he tucks away the realization and buries his face in his mum’s neck. They’ll be time enough later to deal with that, time enough later to truly wonder how long he’s been oblivious to this. 

“Thomas told us what happened,” his dad says roughly, the words nearly getting lost in his hair. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell us?” There’s a world of hurt hiding in his dad’s voice and he pulls back, scrubs at his face, and smiles weakly at him. 

“I had a good reason,” he says, wishing the words didn’t sound as weak as they feel. “I really did have a good reason but it’s a long story.” 

“We just want to understand,” his mum says quietly, cupping his face with trembling hands. “You’re our son no matter what, nothing you tell us could ever change that.” 

“Thank you,” he chokes out, covering her hands with his own. “Thank you, thank you.” 

He tells the story haltingly, stopping and starting so many times that it’s a wonder anything coherent comes out at all. Ron is a steady presence at his shoulder as he sits at the table across from his parents and tells them the story of how horribly wrong everything in his first life seemed to go. 

His parents stare with wide eyes and trembling hands the entire time, his dad’s face going cold when he hears how everyone so easily believed that Sirius was the one to betray them and he once again finds himself wondering what happened to Peter in this world. 

The sun is sinking by the time he finishes explaining, everything after the final battle easier to explain in wide, broad statements. The kitchen is awash in gold light when he glances over at Ron, chest tight from the pain on his parents faces, and feels something deep inside of him unfurl, something that he didn’t even know had taken root until it pushed its way through his veins and said, _hello, I’m here._

Has he always felt this? This bone-deep longing to never let himself be separated from the two people who mean the most to him. If he really thinks about the question, the answer is probably yes. Yes, of course he has. He was just too oblivious to notice. 

“What will you do now?” His mother asks softly, and he feels his heart swell with gratefulness that she so easily accepts that his choices are his own to make now. He can see how much it’s hurting her, to have her child suddenly not really be a child at all, and he can only imagine how he would have reacted if James’ or Al or, Merlin forbid, Lils, had come home one day with a story like his own. If his little girl had suddenly been an adult hiding in a child’s body.   
“I don’t know,” he admits, setting his elbows on the table and burying his face in his hands. “I really don’t know.” 

“Thomas wants us to go to the rebellion headquarters and teach the kids defense,” Ron says, hand coming up to grasp the back of Harry’s neck in a comforting hold. “I can’t think of any reason not to.” 

His dad snorts, “Merlin, I can’t wait to see their faces when a Weasley shows up to teach them defense.”

Lily sighs, “Yes, it’ll be entertaining, but I’m not looking forward to the uproar that Ron’s disappearance will ‘cause.”

“True,” his dad sighs, and he glances up in time to see his dad rubbing at his forehead tiredly. “It’s done now though. Nothing we can do about it.” 

There’s a sudden crash from the sitting room and the sound of Sirius cursing violently. Hermione’s silencing charm must have finally worn off. He wonders how long Sirius and Remus have been back?

“Pads what the fuck did you break?” His dad yells, rolling his eyes, standing up and moving out of the room. He pauses before he leaves, squeezing Harry’s shoulder reassuringly. 

His mum follows shortly after, drawn by the yelling that seems to immediately rise in volume when his dad enters the room. She drops a kiss on his hair as she passes and pats Ron’s hand gently. Neither of them tries to pull him from the kitchen and he can’t help but feel that it’s all too good to be true. Surely he can’t be so lucky as to have parents who not only don’t hate him but are also understanding? Surely life can’t be that kind to him. 

Hermione appears in the kitchen balancing take out cartons almost as soon as his mum is done leaving the room. “I come bearing food!” She announces brightly, pulling a chair up next to Harry and pressing her leg against his. 

“You look happy,” Ron says bemusedly, taking the chopsticks that she hands him and pointing one at her accusingly. “Who did you prove wrong while we were in here?” 

He laughs, taking in her flushed cheeks and bright eyes and knowing that Ron is right. “Oh hush,” she mutters, sticking her tongue out at them. “If you must know Thomas and I had a very interesting discussion about how charms and runes interact differently with each person's magic even if the same charm and rune is consistently used for everyone.”

“A discussion,” Ron says sceptically.   
“They were screaming at each other,” Remus says amusedly, appearing suddenly and busying himself making tea. 

“I knew it,” Ron laughs. 

“There was not that much screaming,” Hermione mutters mutinously. 

“There was so much screaming,” Sirius says, also moving into the kitchen and plopping down at the table across from them. “I didn’t know boss man could get that riled up.” 

“I was not riled up,” Voldemort snaps, sitting down next to Sirius and shoving an elbow into his side. “I was merely trying to impress upon her the inconsistencies in her theory.” 

There’s something horribly jarring about seeing literal Voldemort act so human-like. But there’s also something horribly jarring about knowing that the Dumbledore of this world cannot be trusted, not even a little bit. 

“We’ll do it,” he says abruptly, right as his parents come back into the kitchen. He meets Voldemort’s eyes across the table, a shiver crawling down his spine, that burning, scalding heat flaring in his chest briefly. “We’ll teach the kids for you.” 

Voldemort grimaces, one hand rising to press briefly against his chest. “That is good to hear,” he says slowly, frowning at the three of them. “I will also require an explanation of the events from earlier when we both passed out.” 

“Not today,” Hermione says quietly, putting a hand on his arm before he can answer. “No more explanations today.” 

Voldemort purses his lips but tilts his head in acknowledgement. Remus coughs awkwardly and then exclaims in protest at the noodle Sirius flings at him. 

“Really, Sirius! We’re too old for that!” 

His dad laughs and flings a noodle of his own. “We’re never too old for food fights moony, dear!”

“I will vanish all of your food if you _dare_ start a food fight while I’m here,” Voldemort says flatly, glaring at all three of them and taking another bite of his noodles. 

Sirius pouts but slumps back into his chair without protest, sadly poking at his noodles. 

“We’ll get you one day, boss!” His dad says cheerfully, smiling brightly at the glare Voldemort sends him. 

His mum snorts. “You know very well you won’t,” she says, perching on the counter next to Remus to eat. “I for one am quite happy that there is at least one person who can keep you two in line.”   
Voldemort smirks as his dad and Sirius mime betrayal. He exchanges a baffled glance with Ron and Hermione, the dynamic between the adults and Voldemort still something he is struggling to comprehend. But sitting in the kitchen, Ron and Hermione on either side of him, the sound of the adults bickering settling over them like a comforting blanket, he can nearly forget that this man is Voldemort at all. 

Later, laying in his parent's house, Hermione’s hair tickling his face and Ron’s arm slung over both of them, he once again finds himself wondering how he could have possibly missed this. Could have possibly missed that he’s painfully, heart-wrenchingly in love with his two best friends.   


➳

  


It isn’t until he wakes the next morning that he realizes he’s not once considered that Ron and Hermione might not feel the same. 

The worry tries it’s best to crawl through him but he shoves it back down, refuses to listen to it at all. The pieces add up and he knows, he does, that they feel the same. The three of them have been on the same wavelength for so very long that really he’s only surprised that it took him this long to catch up. He would of course miss the most obvious thing of all. 

“A knut for your thoughts,” Ron murmurs drowsily and he looks away from the ceiling to find Ron watching him through slitted eyes. Hermione mumbles something, still fast asleep and Ron smiles, face so soft and open that Harry barely thinks at all before blurting out—

“You,” he says, the word hanging in the air between them, Ron’s eyes suddenly gone wide. “I mean… I was thinking about you. About you and Hermione.” 

“Oh…?” Ron chokes out, still wide-eyed and taken aback. 

“Yeah,” he looks back at the ceiling, the blue of Ron’s eyes seeming to pierce straight through him. “I’ve been pretty oblivious for a long time haven’t I?” 

There’s a moment of silence that seems to drag, anticipation shooting through him, and then, “Yeah,” Ron laughs, the sound choked and disbelieving. “Yeah, we’d given up on you ever figuring it out.” 

He scoffs at himself, at how blind he’d been, all the signs neatly lined up for him to see, and still, still he’d missed them. “Only took dying and waking up in a different life for me to figure it out,” he mutters. 

“Figure what out,” Hermione slurs, blinking up at them in confusion, finally having woken up.   
“He finally figured out that we’re in love with him,” Ron says softly, eyes locked on Harry’s. 

Hermione sits up abruptly, blinking furiously, a multitude of emotions flashing across her face, far too fast for him to comprehend. “You… But how… now? Really? Now?” 

“I’m not sure that was a real sentence,” he laughs, propping himself up on his elbow to smirk at her. “Nice to see that I can still render you speechless occasionally.” 

“Just to be clear,” Ron says slowly, wrapping a hand around Hermione’s wrist, “when you say you’ve realized, do you mean that you feel the same?”

“I…” he hesitates, taking in their wide, hopeful eyes and the fingers Hermione has curled into the bedspread, Ron’s fingers wrapped tight around Hermione’s wrist. “Yes, merlin yes.” Of course he does. How could he not? 

Hermione makes a low, strangled noise before flinging herself at him. This would have been fantastic but, he’s not sure if she misjudged or if she just didn’t care, because she flings herself at him and knocks them both off of the bed. 

They land in a sprawled mess, Hermione landing on his chest and knocking the air out of him. Ron’s laughter drifts over them, bright and as golden as the sunlight streaming into the room. Bright as the sunbeams leaving Hermione’s eyes looking like molten sunshine. Bright as the lightness that seems to have filled his chest. 

Ron’s laughter drifts over them and Hermione beams down at him, eyes wet and he reaches a trembling hand up to gently trace her cheek. Looks over her shoulder and meets Ron’s eyes, the gentleness hidden in their depths never failing to take his breath away. 

Hermione punches his shoulder softly, laughing wetly, the sound lodging itself underneath his ribs and making itself at home. “It took you long enough,” she murmurs, eyes crinkling. “It really, really took you long enough.” 

He opens his mouth to reply but the response gets lost in her mouth as she slots her lips over his. Gets lost in the breathless rush of _oh, this is what home feels like._

She doesn’t pull back until Ron slips his hand into her hair and gently tugs her back. “Always so greedy,” he says lowly, dark eyes never leaving Harry’s. “You can’t have him all to yourself.”

She rolls her eyes, pressing a kiss to the corner of Ron’s mouth before scrambling off of Harry’s lap and back up onto the bed, where she perches cross-legged, hands folded primly as she watches them expectantly. 

Ron stares at him consideringly for long, heat soaked second as Harry tries to remember how to breathe. The scent of Hermione’s shampoo and the feel of her waist under his hands still overwhelming him. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Ron hums and sits on the floor, back to the bed, and then cocks his head and says, “Come here,” eyes dark, the blue bleeding into the black and leaving Harry’s head spinning. 

Harry swallows roughly and sits up, crawling into Ron’s lap, nearly shivering with anticipation. There’s something distinctly more weighted about this, about acknowledging his attraction to Ron. His first friend, his oldest friend and now here they are, in a different world, on the floor of his childhood bedroom, a bright golden future laying before them, so promising it nearly feels like a dream. 

Ron’s fingers curl through his hair and he tugs Harry’s face down, their lips re-discovering home in the way the other feels. Hermione had kissed him desperately as if she was trying to pour years worth of grief and frustration into the kiss, as if she was trying to impress upon him how much time they’d wasted. Ron kisses him as if he’s trying to find the answers to life inside of Harry himself. Or perhaps, as if he thinks that Harry is the answer to life itself. Harry isn’t sure. Isn’t sure of anything except the slickness of their lips against each other and the way Ron’s shoulders feel under his hands, Hermione’s hands settled on top of his own, fingers circling his wrists as if to make sure he never goes anywhere else ever again. 

Maybe, maybe this second life isn’t such a curse at all if this is how he gets to spend it. If he gets a second chance to spend his life with the two people who have been at his side since he was eleven years old and still trying to figure out how to not feel too small in his own skin. If this is how he gets to spend it, then how can this life be anything but a blessing. How can he do anything at all other than whisper, _thank you, thank you, thank you._

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot in this fic that I never fully explained or only hinted at but at the base of it all the focus of the fic was the Harry's relationship with the people he cares about and the way he handled realizing that he has to go through life again. If you have any questions about anything specific in the fic, background or worldbuilding wise or whatever, feel free to drop a comment or message me on tumblr atlantablack.tumblr.com 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed the finished product! <3


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